1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, an image processing method, a recording medium storing an image processing program, and a computer data signal embedded in a carrier wave.
2. Related Art
Along with recent spread of information equipment and development of networking, more and more network systems having image processing apparatuses such as facsimiles, printers, copy machines incorporated therein have been introduced into offices.
Documents for use in business are output in a variety of forms with the use of facsimiles, printers, copy machines or the like. On the other hand, a variety of countermeasures against fraudulent copying and leakage of confidential information have also been proposed.
One of such countermeasures has been proposed in which, when outputting confidential information onto paper, symbol or code information (partial or overall) is appended to the confidential information or the paper, and when the printed paper thus obtained is to be processed by an image processing apparatus, the symbol or code information appended to the printed paper is read so that processing of the printed paper is controlled depending on information indicated by the read symbol or code information.
Specifically, control is performed such that the printed paper for which an instruction is given is processed according to information indicated by the symbol or code information appended to the printed paper. For example, if the symbol or code information appended to the printed paper indicates prohibition of duplication and yet an instruction is given to copy the printed paper, the copying operation of the printed paper is disabled.
Further, a method has recently been proposed to append symbol or code information (partial or overall) to a printed matter to make it possible to check whether the printed matter has been disposed properly.